Friday, 11 July 2014

Here is the second part of my "The Trouble with Safe Spaces" article. Feel free to read the first part if you have not already. Remember that this
blog represents only my thoughts and not the views of the radical feminist
movement.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Let us now examine the last of the NOWSA conference's “safer space” rules.Some More Rules – Privilege and Victim-BlamingWe will begin where we left off
last time (yes, I will be critiquing every rule on the list.)“-Try to be conscious of and communicate your own needs while also
being attentive to and respecting of other people’s.- Be responsible for your own action. Be aware that your actions
do have an effect on others despite what your intentions may be.”I honestly have no idea what
these rules are about. They are far too vague, but once again the liberal
inventors of these safe space rules appear to stressing the importance of
merely thinking the right way instead of acting the right way through their use
of phrases like “be conscious” and “be aware”. I call vague or otherwise difficult
to understand statements like this “liberish” (the word is a combination of “liberal”
and “gibberish”.)“- Challenge inappropriate and oppressive behaviour, including your own,
and if possible support people to challenge their own behaviour. This includes
an awareness of your own or other peoples privileges, which may include: race,
class, gender, age, sexuality, experience and ability.
(see the “feminist discussion group” discussion thread on “The UMSU Wom*n’s
Department!” facebook page for links to readings on privilege!).”Again we see the importance which
liberals attribute to “awareness” of problems. I have never really liked the
concept of “privilege”, which is not to say that what liberals call "privilege" does not exist, rather I do not think "privilege" is a useful term for understanding how men and women, whites and blacks, rich and poor, etc. interact in our society. I think focussing on all the ways in which we are
“privileged” encourages us to downplay our own oppression and thus discourages
us from engaging in political activism. There is always going to be someone who
is more oppressed than you, but that does not mean that you should shut up and
deal with the oppression that you face. Even white, middle-income males are by
no means the most powerful group within our society (though white males do tend to be more powerful than non-whites and women.) That would be the
capitalist class and yet I never see anyone telling capitalists to “check their
privilege”.I fail to see what we accomplish
by asking people to acknowledge that they have privilege. Is our aim to create
some sort of humble feeling among males, whites and other dominant groups or
are we trying to bring about actual changes in the way these groups behave? Any
man can “check his privilege” by reading some formal statement in front of a group
of women and then continue watching hard core pornography every night,
interrupting women when they speak and so forth. I suggest that instead of
telling males to ceremonially “check their privilege” so that women can have
warm, fuzzy feelings, we should be telling them to stop behaving in an
aggressive, dominating and masculine manner and instead behave like decent
human beings, so that women can actually be free from rape and abuse in the
real world (that liberals seem determined to ignore.) Of course, readers are free to disagree
with me about this point and to express their disagreement in the comment
section. Unlike liberals I think that criticism and self-criticism are good
things. If anything I say ever seems racist, homophobic or unjustifiably
prejudiced, feel free to criticise me for it and tell me how I can do better. I
fail to see how simply informing people that they have “privilege” over and
over and over again, can help them improve the way in which they behave towards
others. I think "check your power" would be a more useful phrase than "check your privilege" and should be followed by "stop behaving in a dominant manner". It may not be a terribly catchy phrase, but it is more honest and useful, since it addresses something individuals can actually change, their actions.“Get help to assure your safety/wellbeing if you need it (see
grievance blurb for more info r.e. support on offer).”This implies that it is the job
of women to prevent rape and other traumatic events from happening to them.
Women do not need rules mandating that they look after their own safety, since
not getting raped/attacked is already in their self interest. I have nothing
against women who try to protect themselves from rape, but creating rules which
make such action mandatory implies that women who fail to prevent their own
rapes are guilty of wrongdoing. The last thing rape victims need to be told is
that they should have gotten “help to assure [their] safety/wellbeing”
beforehand. This points to a more general problem with this list of rules and perhaps liberal discourse in general. It seems they cannot tell the difference between behaviours that may be good ideas (e.g. asking for consent before hugging someone, protecting yourself from violence) and behaviours that ought to be mandatory (e.g. asking for consent before having sex.) “- We would like all the workshops to be sober spaces. During
events where alcohol will be present be aware of how the consumption of alcohol
and other substances can affect your behaviour in ways that impact on others.
If you so choose, drink & be merry, just make sure you do so safely &
responsibly.”Alcohol companies never define
what they mean by “drink responsibly” and, apparently, neither do liberal
feminists. I guess they would rather not interfere with the alcohol industry’s
profits.“- Any group or individual engaging in violence (including sexual
violence and harassment) or offensive behaviour of the nature outlined above
may be asked to leave immediately. This includes expression of pro-non-consent
views.”If we assume that this statement
is meant to be taken literally, then a person can be kicked out for speaking
too much, touching somebody in a non-sexual, non-aggressive way without their
consent or making a statement that is not an “I” statement, since the other
points on the list imply that these behaviours are “offensive” and wrong. Of
course actual violence and sexual harassment should not be allowed and people
with “pro-non-consent” (which I assume means “pro-rape”) views should not be
attending the conference to begin with. That said I have only ever heard
of one case where the organisers of a liberal feminist conference forcibly
evicted a group of attendants. In May of 2013, members of an anti-pornography
organisation called “Stop Patriarchy” were removed from a liberal conference regarding abortion rights. They were allegedly removed for breaking some of the rules
listed above (they had the guts to make general statements about women and
abortion, how horrible) but given that some of the rules are downright
ridiculous, I suspect that everyone was breaking them and I do not think it is
a coincidence that they got expelled right after an argument that they had with
a group of “empowered sex workers”. I daresay that the rules were used as an
excuse to censor anti-pornography discourse.Conclusion

This brings me to the end of the
list of liberal “safer space” rules. I hope you have enjoyed this journey. If
you have, I doubt you will want to attend the NOWSA conference or any similar
event which involves listening to liberals make “I” statements about how much
they love pornography and boob jobs while trying very hard not to touch each
other by accident. I hope you find a more pleasant way to spend your time.“This is the
Safer Spaces Policy from UMSU’s Queer & Wom*n’s Departments’ "Rad Sex & Consent Week 2012”I am not at all surprised to find out that these rules came from an
event devoted to discussing the benefits of hard core “feminist” pornography,
BDSM and painful anal intercourse. They clearly promote individualism and encourage us to put more
emphasis on changing our thoughts than changing the world. Oh and by the way,
critically analysing sexual activities to determine whether they are
egalitarian or not is way more radical than having sex will ever be.

An event involving workshops on "Feminist Porn", "BDSM", "Fisting" and "Anal Play for Everyone"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------That concludes my discussion of liberal "safe spaces".I was going to feature the whole the poster for "Rad Sex and Consent Week" , so you could all see for yourself what was being promoted, but thewriting on it was too small, so you will just have to trust me. I guess even liberals can be embarressed by what they promote.

Sunday, 6 July 2014

Since I finally have a follower, I thought I should post something, so that my one follower does not get disappointed. This article turned out to be a lot longer than I thought it would be, so I am posting it in two parts. Here is part one of "The Trouble with Safe Spaces".

Sometimes
the world can be a pretty frightening place, especially for women. The desire
for a special space, free from rape, sexual assault, harassment and other forms
of bullying, is thus understandable, but is that really what liberal feminist
“safe spaces” are about? I feel that so-called “safe space” rules place too
many restrictions on what ideas can be expressed in such spaces. Some restrictions are
necessary to prevent anti-feminists from telling women they deserve to get
raped or spewing hateful garbage about how feminists are worthless because they
do not conform to social norms regarding physical appearance, but challenges to
the liberal status quo should not automatically be labelled as “hateful” or
“bigoted”. -

In order to
examine the ways in which liberals suppress disagreement in the name
of creating “safe spaces”, I will be examining the “Safer Spaces Policy” for
the 2014 NOWSA conference. I think NOWSA stands for the National Organisation
of Women Students Australia. The “Australia” part kind of makes the “National”
part redundant. Perhaps liberals wanted their group to seem hip, cool and
new by including “NOW” in their acronym. Keen observers will have also noted
that the conference organisers have decided to label their spaces as “safer”
rather than “safe”. Maybe they have finally realised that they cannot put an
end to rape, sexual assault, body hatred and the numerous other horrors that
women endure without losing some of their precious orgasms and, unsurprisingly,
they decided that their orgasms are more important. So here are some of the
rules that liberals have come up with to make their spaces “safer” (but not
actually safe) for women.

Defining
“Safer Spaces”

All the
“safer space” related quotes in this post come from this site over here. I have to admit that the liberals have
managed to make their website more professional this year. There is not a
single LOL-cat on the site. Oh wait, no, despite being so hip and NOW they have
posts from last year’s conference on this year’s site. If I were to guess the
average age of the conference’s participants from the title and image of this page, I would say that they were about eleven
or twelve. In reality they are university students trying to give viewers the
impression that they are our BFFs. Sorry, not buying it.

“Safer spaces are welcoming, engaging and
supportive. We want this conference to be a space where people support each
other and can feel free to be themselves. A place where abuse and discrimination
is not tolerated.”

So far, so
good, although many of the rules they introduce later severely limit one’s
ability to “be yourself.” I guess you can be “be yourself” so long as you are
being your liberal self. Of course, conservatives could just as easily claim
that they allow you to be yourself at their events so long as you respect the
rules of conservatism. As we will see, liberals have their rules just like
everyone else and their notion of what counts as “abuse and discrimination” is
pretty broad.

“Attendees are asked to be aware of
their language and behaviour, and to think about whether it might be offensive
to others.”

Attendees
are not required to change their language or behaviour or anything. No, they
are just suppose to “be aware” of its effects. Just “think” the right way and
everything will be better, idealism at its most blatant.

“This is no space for violence, for
touching people without their consent, for being creepy, sleazy, racist,
ageist, sexist, hetero-sexist, trans-phobic, able-bodiest, classist, sizeist,
whorephobic or any other behaviour or language that may perpetuate oppression.”

The “this is
no space...” introduction suggests that these behaviours may be acceptable in
other spaces. I guess they had to put that in there since even Laci Green (the
YouTube queen of liberal, “sex positive” feminism) admits that BDSM is a form
of “consensual violence”. As for “touching people without consent”, are they
seriously suggesting that I need permission to touch people on the shoulder and
do other totally harmless things? I will say more about that later.

“Creepy”
and “sleazy” are difficult to define, the whole of liberal feminism seems
pretty sleazy to me with its insistance that women become prostitutes and
pornography performers in order to empower themselves. I have never understood
why “ageism” is such a bad thing. It makes sense to treat people differently
based on their age (e.g. elderly people deserve to be treated with respect and
children should not be given all the liberties that adults have.)

The term
“classism” fails to encompass what is really wrong with capitalism, but my
readers (if I have any) will have to wait for other posts to find out how I
feel about “classism”, “able-body-ism” and “size-ism”. All I will say for now
is that sticking the word “-ism” on the end of a word does not constitute
inventing a useful political theory. Oh, and as for “whore-phobia”, we all know
that really means “presenting the viewpoint that becoming a prostitute or
pornography performer is not the most empowering career choice ever”.

The Actual Rules - "I" Statements and Other Issues

This is a list of “What we need to do to create a safer space”
according to the NOWSA conference organisers.“- Respect people’s physical and emotional boundaries.- Always get explicit verbal consent before touching someone or
crossing boundaries.”The first point is clearly
unnecessary given that the second point forbids attendees from so much as
rubbing shoulders with somebody else without first getting explicit permission
to do so. Could you imagine living in a world where every touch required explicit
verbal consent? Every interaction would be so mechanical. You would have to ask
for permission before you could hug a friend who was feeling sad and if they
nodded in response, you would have to demand an explicit, verbal “yes”. Explicit verbal consent is of
course very important for sexual activity, but do we really need it in ordinary
interactions? Of course, this rule cannot actually be enforced, but I wonder
how many caring, non-sexual and completely harmless interactions between women
have been prevented by this ridiculous rule. I also wonder what the attendants
are supposed to do when a group of them have to enter a room with a
narrow entrance. I guess, they all have to go in one-by-one in case some
non-consensual, shoulder-to-shoulder touching between females occurs, because we
all know how horrible that is.“- Try to notice how much you speak in meetings, workshops, and
discussions. Try to share the knowledge you have whilst also allowing others
the space to do so (especially to those whose voices are heard less often) and
practice active listening.”The last thing women need to be
told is that they talk too much and that they thus need to shut up and practice
“active listening”. What does that even mean? Listening is a pretty passive
action if you ask me. I do not think this rule can fix the fact that certain
oppressed groups speak less during meetings, because it does not address the
reasons why they speak less. Women in general are not terribly eager to speak
up during political discussions so I doubt that speaking time is a scare
resource in women-only meetings. The issue could be that certain women are
afraid to speak up in case they anger others in the group and since there are
so many rules that you have to follow when speaking to liberal feminists and so
many ways to go wrong, can you really blame them?“- Speak from your own experience (e.g. use “I” statement) and try to
avoid generalising or universalising your experience in a way that
invisibilises other people’s experiences.”In other words, do not make
statements (or “statement” as the above quote says, I guess liberals are not
too fond of decent grammar) about the oppression of women as group. Speak only
about yourself and your personal “reality”. This rule promotes relativism,
idealism and individualism all at once. It discourages any attempt to learn
about the broader systems that govern the social world (e.g. the domination of
men over women, capitalism, etc.) It encourages people to forget about fighting
for the rights of women as a whole, let alone humanity as a whole, and instead
focus on their individual selves. Of course, there is nothing wrong
with making “I” statements that provide real life examples of the various
problems that women experience, but those personal stories should be used to
try and understand the bigger picture. The problem with the above rule is that
it tries to limit women to only
making “I” statements and condemns generalisations as inherently bad. In
reality generalisations are necessary for understanding the world. In order to
understand reality we begin with broad generalisations and then refine them
over time as we learn more. Early generalisations will always be inaccurate in
some cases, but without them we would never get anywhere. We would have no
choice but to stare at individual bits of data and marvel about how mysterious
and complex the world is (which seems to be all that liberal academics
ever do.)The rule also fails to take into
account that women might have something other than their own individual
experiences to bring to the table. A generalisation based on one’s individual
experiences may not be justified, but what about a generalisation based on the
experiences of a large group of people? Such experiences can be summarised in a
book or scientific article, which a conference attendant may have read. The
attendant can then use their personal experiences to shed some light on the
claims made by the article. For example, if an article claims that watching
pornography makes a man more aggressive, an attendant may have a personal
experience that matches that claim and which can provide more detailed
information on how watching pornography influences male behaviour.Lastly, you cannot “invisibilise”
someone’s experience simply by making a statement. Experiences are
“invisibilised” by real social forces. The most effective means of
communication (television, films, books, etc.) are controlled largely by the
rich and powerful. They decide whose ideas will be visible and whose will not
be. The need to work long hours every day can also prevent people from having their
voices heard as can the fact that the culture implicitly and explicitly tells
women to shut up in various ways (one of the earlier rules is a perfect example
of this.) The notion that one can somehow prevent a particular viewpoint from
being heard merely by expressing a viewpoint that conflicts with it attributes
way too much power to an individual and discourages disagreement within the
liberal feminist movement.“- Respect people’s opinions, beliefs, differing states of being
and differing points of view (this doesn’t mean you can’t critique beliefs etc.
you don’t agree with, just that you should do so respectfully! E.g. criticise
what has been said not the person who said it).”I am not sure what they mean by
“different states of being”. It sounds like something a New Age spiritualist
would say. I am not sure how “respecting” a viewpoint is compatible with
criticising it. I try to respect people so long as they are not being total
jerks, but ideas should only get as much respect as they deserve. I agree that
we should aim to criticise the idea, not the person expressing it, but liberals
are far too eager to take criticisms of their beliefs and behaviours personally
(e.g. “how dare you try to tell me that I as pornography performer/prostituted
women/BDSM submissive am not a feminist because of my sexuality”.) This rule
appears to grant intellectual freedom, but in practice any idea that is
contrary to accepted liberal thought is likely to be denounced as
“disrespectful” and thus attendants will be prevented from expressing it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I hope you enjoy the first part of "The Trouble with Safe Spaces". I would like to thank Meg for following me and thus inspiring me to finally write something. The next part will hopefully be posted very soon. I would like to give the people who re-blogged my first post a pat on the back, but according to liberals that would require their explicit verbal consent. So for now I will just say thanks.

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About Me

I am a radical leftist who does not belong to any political party or organisation (hence the name "Independent Radical.) The labels I use to describe my political ideology are "revolutionary socialist" and "communist". My political and philosophical views have also been influenced by radical feminism, the atheist movement, the sceptic movement, utilitarianism and virtue ethics. I do not claim to represent any of these movements, but I hope that those who identify with them will get something out of my blog.
I have no interest in appealing to liberal feminists, liberals in general, queer theorists, libertarians, post-modernists or anyone else who thinks that "anything goes" with regard to questions of objective reality or ethical behaviour. I am an unashamed truth-seeker and moralist. If that offends you, do not read my posts.